Forsworn
by Southamerican Eggplant
Summary: Redka shrugged. Life was precious. There was no time to regret- not this. Not anything. Not even Frande.


Jdar passed through Markarth's gates first. Frande came after, hauling a limping Redka along with him. The gates themselves were made of metal. Something bronze-y, polished to a shine. She'd never seen anything so extravagant in her cabbage-farming life. She reached out to touch it, but Frande snorted and jerked her along behind him.

Her wonder at the metal door was instantly forgotten when she saw the rest of the city. Staircases climbed up and down the cliff faces, hewn straight into the rock. Bridges arced high over her head, and the walls seemed to stretch into the very sky. Silvery waterfalls, overflowing with gentle rain, tumbled down and sprayed her with a fine mist. The whole city seemed to be made out of pale grey stone, blending seamlessly, with intricate carvings worn and mossed over with time. Redka tipped her head back, struggling to take it all in.

There was so _much_ of it.

"There are a lot of stairs," Jdar said mildly.

"How does anyone get anywhere here?" Redka asked. "It's like a maze." No sensible person made such a complicated city. Or one so full of ledges that were so easy to fall off of.

"By walking very, very slowly," Frande said dryly. "There are only two rules in Markarth; don't mess with the Silver-Bloods, and don't fall."

Frande led them to the Silver-Blood inn. It wasn't, he explained, managed by the Silver-Bloods, but merely owned by them, though that went for just about anything in the city, right down to the guards' underwear. The family that worked there was apparently _just_ eccentric enough to be tolerable, in his eyes.

_Note to self: eccentric to Frande means REALLY FUCKING LOUD,_ Redka thought, pulling a face. Frabbi wrung a rag between her bony hands and squawked at her husband.

"Klepper! Quit being a lazy oaf and show these travelers to their rooms!"

"That won't be necessary," Jdar said. He and Redka wore matching grimaces. He passed a handful of septims over the counter. "We'll see ourselves up."

They headed upstairs. The rooms were small, enclosed, and once again, made of the same smooth grey stone the rest of the city was made from. There was a runty bed, neatly made with furs and a goose-feather pillow, a writing desk shoved into the corner with a dried up inkwell and ratty quill, and a plate of fruit perched precariously on a chest at the end of the bed.

It was better than sleeping in a ditch.

Frande passed her off to Jdar and muttered something about getting a drink before disappearing. Redka sat on the edge of the bed and watched as Jdar unpacked a roll of gauze and a bundle of dried blue flowers.

"I don't think Frande likes it here," she said quietly, watching as he started to chew on the flowers. He shrugged, and began to wrap her ankle in the bandage. His hands, while large, were gentle, and the paw pads were soft.

"I don't believe he likes to be anywhere but on his horse," he said through a mouthful of flowers.

"Well, yes, but… He looks pissy. Pissier than usual, I mean."

Jdar shrugged again. He finished wrapping her ankle and rolled the leg of her pants up. He spat a wad of chewed up flowers into his palm and smoothed it over the long scrape she'd picked up.

"Markarth isn't a happy place, and Frande isn't a happy man. Unless he's insulting someone," he added, as an afterthought. Redka smiled a little. "Give him twenty minutes and he'll be quietly drunk and out of our hair." He started binding her shin in gauze as well.

"Maybe someone will knock his teeth out."

"We can only hope. Give me your hand."

Jdar left her once he'd finished tending her wounds, and the inkeepers' daughter brought up a dry change of clothes. It was a dress, she was dismayed to find after pulling it on, and a rather shapeless and undyed dress on top of that. She looked like a farmer.

_You are a farmer._

Not anymore. She wrung her hair out as she looked at herself in the mirror. It'd been a while since she'd seen her own reflection.

She looked… older. Stronger, certainly, and tougher. Her face was sharper. She never went hungry, per se, but there wasn't always that much to eat on the roads of Skyrim. She rolled up her sleeves. Her arms were leaner, and peppered by scars.

What would Mother and Father think?

She didn't push the thought from her mind like she usually did. She let it sit there.

What would they think? Would they be proud? In complete honesty, it was easier to imagine her father spitting off to the side and telling her that Skyrim's wilderness was no place for a little Dunmer than any imaginary words of pride she could conjure.

She stood there, and looked at her scars— one across her cheekbone, angling down to her jaw, another across the corner of her lip, and the thickest across her throat. Thalmor-given, and survived.

Redka still didn't know what to think of that. Of herself, standing here, while her parents and uncle lay rotting in the black wreckage of their farm.

"They'd be proud," she told her reflection. And for once, she believed it. She passed a hand over the scar on her throat, and headed downstairs.

Life was precious. There was no time to regret anything.

She found Frande sitting at the bar.

"You're drunk," Redka said flatly, tucking her hands under her arms. Frande stared at her.

"You look ridiculous."

"I left you alone for forty-five minutes," she said, climbing up on the stool next to him. His smile was smug.

"I think I've done pretty well for myself in such a short amount of time, yeah? If the gods have any mercy, I'll stay like this for a while. You?"

"The barkeep will probably think I'm fourteen."

He snickered. "Maybe he'll offer you a coloring book."

Thunder rolled, lightning _cracked_ someplace nearby, and Redka jumped, damn her reflexes. Frande took a drink and licked foam off his lips. "You don't like storms?"

"No," she said tightly.

"Look on the bright side, Bottle Rocket."

"There isn't one, other than the fact that it might keep the Forsworn away. Or zap you."

Frande spit. "Forsworn," he sneered. "_Fuck_ the Forsworn. Let them come."

"Oh yeah- seeing you strung up like a chicken would be fun," she said. But she was interested in his reaction. He'd said it in much the same way she cursed the Thalmor. She felt it, in the way his face twisted, and the way he spit the words out like they were poison. She felt, for a moment, that they might have been the same breed of people.

He made an ugly face and took another drink. "I know that look. You're about to twist my cock with questions."

She cocked an eyebrow.

"I'm not a loose-lipped drunk."

The other one went up, and he cursed.

"I'm not _much_ of a loose-lipped drunk." He rested his lips against the rim of his tankard. He didn't drink. He didn't even blink— his eyes unfocused a bit, fixing on some point in the grain of the bar.

"I used to live here," he said finally.

"Really? When?"

"When I was a boy. Don't…" He shook his head and sucked in a breath. "Did you count how many drinks I had?"

"No," she said, glaring. "I'm not your damn mother."

"Just as well. I hope I won't remember this. For your sake," he added grimly. Redka opened her mouth, ready to respond with a threat of her own, but he held up a hand. "Shut up and I'll tell you the story."

Her love of prying into people's business (especially smug little bastards like him) outweighed her pride by far, so she waited.

"You might want to be a little tipsy for this too," he muttered, waving over the barkeeper. "What do you want?"

"Nothing." She wanted to remember this story.

"Damn you," he said sourly, but he slid two septims across the table and ordered a mug of goat's milk. The silence while they waited was awkward, thick enough to be cut with a knife. Or stood on. Or set on fire. Redka fidgeted, because even sodden and exhausted and bruised, she was still Redka, and she hated waiting. Eventually Hrein set a mug down in front of her, and she took it, but didn't drink. She just stared at Frande while he stared at the wall. If this got too deep and touchy-feely, she was leaving.

"I was raised here," he said eventually. "Not— not here. But in the area. I was born a Forsworn."

Her eyebrows shot up.

"Then—"

"I'm warning you now, if you interrupt me at all, I'm stopping the story and going to bed. And I sleep _hard_ when I'm drunk." His expression was dead serious.

She closed her mouth fast enough to make her teeth clack together.

"Good. Sit back, Bottle Rocket, and enjoy the calamity.

"Let's get one thing straight: I'm not a Forsworn anymore. If you call me one, I'll dangle you over a bridge by your ears. I'm one of the Reachmen." He rubbed his thumb on the side of his tankard. "Though, honestly, I couldn't give any less of a damn about what Ulfric does with the place. It's not like he can run it any further into the ground. Besides," he added bitterly. "Dragons are going to eat the entire country anyway."

"Fucking pessimist—"

"What did I tell you about interrupting?" he snapped. Redka sucked in an angry breath and waited. "Any of the anger I felt towards Nords or Bretons or what have you was mob mentality. Taught to me. I didn't believe in the image of some blonde-haired pig lounging across thethrone and erasing Reachmen culture— not really. But I was raised into the killing Nords. They gave me a sword, or a knife and some poison, I stabbed one. It's like learning to grow cabbages, only with more blood." He paused, and looked over at her. "…Cabbages don't bleed, do they?"

"No," she said, unimpressed.

"The more you know. My mother and father were Forsworn, and they raised me as Forsworn. It's not a pretty lifestyle. There was a lot of stabbing and in-fighting. We wore furs, stole what weapons we could and shoddily made those we couldn't, and sometimes we went hungry. There was a sense of pride, though. Belonging. Everyone there belonged there. They wanted to be there."

"Not you, though, right?" Redka asked. Frande shrugged slowly.

"I don't know. I really don't. I like to think that I never belonged, but I…" He drew a sharp breath. "Sometimes you get really into the killing."

She nodded, pretending she understood.

"The magic scared me, though," he said softly. "And why wouldn't it? I saw my first Briarheart when I was five.

"They're pretty much zombies. Grey skin, rotting flesh, all of it. They dressed even worse than we did, if you can imagine it." He laughed, though it was mostly to himself. "Skulls on their belts, bare chests, war paint. You think the jarls dress fancy? You should see Briarheart headdresses. Imagine a hollowed out deer head. I don't know how they do it, but it looks ugly as shit." He shook his head. "Gaudy sons of bitches."

"Why're they called Briarhearts?" Redka prompted. He'd warned her not to interrupt, but he was drunk and derailing, and she didn't want him to pass out in the beginning of the story. He wouldn't continue it without the influence of alcohol, and _never_ with a hangover.

"Well, their hearts were cut out and replaced with Briar Hearts. It just sort of… hangs out. In a little hole," he said, tapping his fist where his heart would be. "Right there. You can see the heart through the stitching. There's a whole ceremony to go with it."

A chilly tingle clawed its way down Redka's spine, and her hands dragged to her lap, in reach of her knife. He gave her a lazy, knowing smile.

"There was Daedra worshipping too, Bottle Rocket. But not the kind your people do."

"No."

"Yes," he said softly, leaning in close. His eyes, blue and bloodshot, glinted with firelight, and his breath smelled of alcohol. She cringed away. He either didn't notice, or pretended not to. "I saw my first ceremony when I was twelve. Joined in when I was fifteen."

"So— so are the other rumors true?" she asked quietly. He sat back in his seat, elbow on the bar, and peered at her from over the rim of his tankard.

"Depends. Which ones?"

"The… human sacrifice… ones." She felt stupid just asking.

He looked at her long and hard.

"Don't ask me that question again."

And suddenly she didn't want to know anymore. The image of Frande playing around in human entrails was pretty nauseating.

Frande looked inside his mug and cursed.

"Barkeep," he called. "Fill me up again."

Hrein looked at him much the same way you'd look at crap after being kicked around a lot, and filled his tankard back up.

"I really don't want to remember this," Frande said sourly. He took a long drink and shuddered. "I left when I was fifteen."

"Left?" she asked. "Did anyone try to stop you?"

He snorted. "Of course they did. And what do you think I did with them?"

"Probably cried."

"The only thing a scared kid with an axe knows how to do," he told her, ignoring her comment. "Off went an arm, maybe a head. I don't know who it was I killed. It didn't matter. I ran. I'm a shit hunter, by the way. I would've starved eventually, if something didn't eat me first. Berries and roots only do so much in the way of food."

"Did someone find you?" Redka asked. She hated the unspoken rule that they had to speak softly, and hated that she didn't have the courage to break it. They sounded like eight year olds huddled round a campfire.

"Obviously. I wasn't lucky enough to just kick it." He knocked back another large portion of his drink and stared at the table for some time. Redka shifted in her seat.

"Bellwyn found me," he said at last. "I wasn't—I wasn't dying or anything. I was just some half-naked kid sitting by the river smashing a mud crab on a rock. I must've had Forsworn written all over me. Animal furs, ratty hair, a scowl mean enough to curdle milk. I even had a damn bone necklace, and do you want to know what she did, Bottle Rocket?"

Redka nodded.

"She sat down beside me and showed me how to do it properly." The corner of his mouth twitched up in a smile, and settled back down again. "It was ridiculous. We were sitting by a river cracking open mud crabs. She even took me back to her house so we could cook 'em. It was the first decent meal I'd had in days.

"She told me she worked as a stable hand, and that she slept in the barn with the horses. She invited me to stay with her, if I wanted."

"Did you?"

"I did. It was nice. I'd never seen a horse before, except in passing. They scared me a little," he admitted. "She brought out one of the Jarl's horses, though— a gelding named Goldentrot. He wasn't like the heavy draft horses they have here in Skyrim." His face, wind burned and lined by not age, but by weather, slackened at the memory. "He was one of those light horses from Cyrodiil. I thought he was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen in my life. I knew what I wanted to do with myself. I wanted to take care of that horse, and I wanted to learn to ride.

"Bellwyn took me in," he continued. "She got a job for me at the stables. She made sure nobody knew I was what I was. I was some orphaned miner's son, and nobody asked any questions. She taught me to read and write, how to make a potion out of anything, how to ride. Everything she knew about horses, she taught me. She… she said I was a natural on horseback. Like I was born to do it." His voice cracked. He wouldn't look at her. He didn't speak for what felt like hours. He looked so… _Something_. Tired. He couldn't have been much over than her twenty-one years, but he looked older than Oblivion itself in that moment.

"This is the fun part, short stuff," he told her eventually. He started to speak, then stopped again, and stared down at his tankard. "Please don't make me tell you the rest."

Redka felt something at his words. They were plaintive, an almost childlike plea. A week ago she'd have sooner chop off her own hand than touch him, but she touched him now. She slid her hand, small, grey, into his. His gloved fingers curled around hers.

"You don't have to keep going," she said quietly.

He didn't look up.

"I… I should, though. I got this far. I'm not gonna pussy out."

She nodded, but he didn't let go of her hand.

"I was eighteen," he said. His voice betrayed him, and some of the rawness seeped out. "I'd lived with her for three years. It was a good life. I didn't like the religion or the paying taxes or the classism, but I learned. I think— I _hope_ I made a better stable hand than raving barbarian.

"We'd all heard about the Forsworn raids by this point, but they were never in the city. Not even outside of it. In the hills, mostly, in mines farther from the Jarl's reach." He swallowed thickly. "I guess they got brave that season, because they came in at nightfall and burned everything to the ground."

Redka felt like her stomach had dropped through the barstool and plummeted several thousand feet underground. She knew how this would end. She'd lived it. And Gods, _he had too._

"They didn't just burn everything. You and I both know if you're going to wreck someone's life, you gotta do it thoroughly," he said. "Forsworn may have been about as shitty smiths as a person could ever imagine, but they made good bows, and good arrows. They didn't look nice, but it doesn't really matter what something looks like when it's buried in your ribcage."

"They shot her," Redka said flatly. Frande nodded slowly, still refusing to look up.

"They shot her. Four times in the back, and once in the calf. I saw. I counted. They shot me too," he added, almost as an afterthought. Like it was somehow less important, "Once, in the chest, and someone with a blade opened me from shoulder to hip. It was quite the sight for the stable master, or, it would've been, if he wasn't lying on the ground with his neck open."

He looked up, finally, and his face—his _face_. She tried not to flinch.

"Did she die?"

"No," he said. "It would've been so much easier if she did. She should have been dead. I was pretty happy to just lie there and do that. Dying, I mean.

"Bellwyn was better than me, though. She'd always been better than me. She—" He took a deep breath. "We had one horse left. A paint mare," he added, because it was important to him. "Bellwyn… she put me on the horse and slapped the dumb thing on the ass and it took off and I… I didn't go back. I _should've_. But I was too weak. I have to believe that I was. If I don't, I just… I just want to… I don't _deserve_…" He lost his words for a minute. He looked disgusted with himself.

"I kept looking behind me, expecting to see her coming after me on another horse, but she never did. I wanted to go back, but I didn't. My horse knew what to do, even when I passed out."

They lapsed into silence again. Frande stared at her, waiting to see something in her face. When it didn't appear, he looked down at their hands, and realized that he had hers in a stranglehold, and let go. She rubbed feeling back into the fingers.

"Where did you go?" she asked finally.

"Does it matter?" He asked. "I lived, and I shouldn't have. I hate this place, and I hate the Forsworn. It's not my damn business what they do anymore. They should be able to kill whoever they want, and I shouldn't care. But I do. I _do_ care. I don't want them to kill anyone else." He looked up again. "Make sense?"

She nodded, and for once, she meant it.

"I told myself I wouldn't care, and I'd never come back to this place. Well," he said, tipping his tankard at her. His smile was back, but it was an ugly, sad expression. "Here I am, and I hate every minute of it." He downed the rest of whatever the hell it was they served in that place and set it heavily on the table. "I'm going to have a killer headache tomorrow. You're in charge of making sure I don't end up Cidhna Mine for brawling with someone."

"I'll try."

"No you won't," he said. "You'll end up in the damn place with me, and you'll regret having ever jumped in the barrel with me."

She shrugged. Life was precious. There was no time to regret- not that. Not anything. Not even Frande.


End file.
